20. I think this goes back to the damage religious institutions have inflicted upon themselves

we have been living through an era of fundamentalism in all the monotheisms and they're all reactionary movements everywhere they exist.

the reaction isn't divided along gender lines. Many women have routinely contributed their time, money and vote to continued oppression of women.

Religious females were behind the defeat of the ERA in the U.S.

The reason for this, it is postulated, is those females derive a benefit from their positions attached to a powerful male and define their power because of this male.

It's like white women in the south who pretended slavery wasn't a blight on America's very foundational documents because they were catered to and had exclusive rights by benefit of their marriages, etc. to rich slaveholders.

Some women did go against this - and there was a price to pay. There's always a price to pay for refusing to comply with the dominant oppression of the day.